Forties here. The people who; “get more conservative” are those who accumulate wealth and have no empathy. There's lots of them. You don't get conservative because you agree with their policies. You get conservative because you don't want to help others.
I agree but this will never happen. Americans fetishize the ultra rich. We all fancy ourselves as billionaires in the making.
Why, with enough hard work and a little luck any of us could be the next Jeff Bezos, right?
It's a chronic consensual delusion baked into the DNA of American culture. And it's fucking insane.
Imagine what you can buy with a million dollars in one day. Buy a nice house, a few nice cars, almost anything you want. For most people, a million dollars would be life-changing.
Charles Schwab, can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 25 years.
He’s just number 50 on the top billionaires list. Going to the even wealthier:
Mark Zuckerberg can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 195 years.
Warren Buffet can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 230 years.
The Koch brothers can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 242 years.
Bill Gates can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 247 years.
Jeff Bezos can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 306 years.
The Walton heirs can blow a MILLION dollars EVERY DAY for 370 years.
Trump gave the rich over a trillion dollars in tax cuts. If you took that money and went back to 700 BC, before Ancient Rome, and spent a million dollars every single day, you’d finally run out of money now, 2019.
These are very conservative estimates because it assumes that whatever is bought will have zero resale value.
All while we lead the industrialized nations for children in poverty (only Turkey, Greece, Israel, and Bolivia are worse), families are terrified of going to the doctor for fear of financial ruin, we have a massive homeless problem, young people are burdened with huge student loans, families are strained and broken because both parents have to work full time. How many murders, divorces, suicides, and poor upbringings have been caused by financial strain?
It’s TIME to adjust the rules.
The United Way is biased but the overall sentiment rings true. American society is absolutely predatory aka “Fuck you I got mine”.
And if you think that is a good thing you are part of the problem.
Poverty in America, in other words, has become endemic and ubiquitous because its systemic and structural. It’s baked into the system. It’s a feature, not a bug. And most Americans these days, I’d wager, understand this intuitively. Work hard, play by the rules, become something, someone worthy. Be a teacher, engineer, writer, coach, therapist, nurse etcetera. What do you get? You get your pension “raided” (read: stolen) by hedge funds, you get your income decimated by “investment bankers”, you get charged a fortune for the very things you yourself are involved in producing but never earn a fair share of, you get preyed on in every which way the predatory can dream up.
https://eand.co/half-of-americans-are-effectively-poor-now-what-the-c944c518db6a
I totally relate to withdrawing from the world and would do it if I had the ability to. For me, it's less that I've been rejected or bullied and more that living in American society gives me an uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance. It's kind of a terminal situation as I've tried to make the best of things but the only thing that really helped was when I was living in a hippie commune (which wasn't sustainable long term because I have responsibilities like aging parents). I just don't like our culture and I don't like our lifestyle. I'm not suited to it. But more than that, I think the way we live is morally wrong in too many ways to enumerate here, in too many ways to cope with some of the time. Living the life I need to live to get by is painful to me. I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with the basics of what we've built as a civilization. I hate cars or cities that are built around cars (the sounds they make are really abrasive to me- it's just one of those things that's like nails on a chalkboard and you can't explain why), I hate having to give my time and labor to make someone else rich, I hate working just to spend my money on nonsense, I hate the anti-intellectualism of American culture, I hate the hyper capitalistic antisocial nature of our economy, I find American politics deeply offensive and can't tolerate discussing or hearing about the events of the day, I hate that nobody notices that to live you have to go into debt and that the powers that be want you to go into debt so that you're a slave to them, I hate commuting, I hate that most recreational activities in the US are centered on consumer culture, I hate that your life is an endless hamster wheel of being funneled from one sterile air-conditioned isolated box to the next, I hate the idea of the nuclear family, I hate the rat race, I hate the suburbs and the unethical quantity of space/resources Americans feel entitled to, I hate the life of quiet desperation that most of us are living. Just generally, I don't jive with 99% of the norms in our culture. I just don't like what this particular life has to offer, and if I had the option I would opt out of society completely and spend most of my hours in blissful silence/solitude whilst petting my cat and tending my garden. I think most of us feel this way on some level, it's just that some of us are better at shoving down the feeling and going through the motions, either because we're afraid or because we numb ourselves to it.
This.
I am not depressed but very disillusioned with the rat race, endless consumption, insane baby boomers, insane government, insane social media/device addiction. I just want to live in a cabin on my own land, grow cactus, play mandolin, and cook food/spend time with my kids. Literally all I want to do with the rest of my life. Turn 42 this summer.
Winner winner chicken dinner.
We will gladly pay higher taxes for the ability to have free healthcare, not own a car, and live somewhere that is not so polluted.
Trump is a malicious clown but IMO he's got a real chance at a second term. It's the economy, stupid.
I was a classic victim of the great recession. I was successful and happy to live my little life. The worries started in 2008 when the financial company I was with had to close its doors rather suddenly. I had experienced hiccups in my career before, or moved jobs before, but this was like nothing I'd ever seen. For my talent and experience, I couldn't get arrested. I lost everything.
So went the next eight years.
I struggled and I moved around, place to place, trying to get back to good, but it felt like the opportunities that had once been there were gone and it felt like forever. I sold t-shirts for a while. I went from excess to floating bills, and trying to keep the lights on.
I always vote, but I didn't vote last round. I couldn't. I thought Trump was crazy and Hilary was ... well, no.
These past two years have seen a change that I would never have thought possible. The economy rebounded so fast that I wasn't sure what was happening. And then doors began to open again, and I walked through one of them and now I have my life back again.
I'm not a kid, I've seen presidents come and go, but I've never felt an effect as tangible as what I am experiencing now. This is deeply personal to me – my life has changed.
I still think Trump is a little crazy, but I'm down with it and I will literally run to the polls to re-elect him. And if you think I'm the exception, you're nuts. There are millions of me who have seen their worlds slowly come back again or get tangibly and personally better. That's a story that hasn't been told through politics in a very long time.